Restricting asylum: Trends and prospects

The dramatic rise in asylum applications in industrialized countries during the last decade has resulted in the development of an increasingly restrictive asylum regime. The tools these countries have devised for containing and deterring asylum claims—the concepts of Safe Countries of Origin and Safe Third Countries, Manifestly Unfounded Applications, and numerous administrative measures which act as barriers to entry—are targeted specifically at nationals of countries most likely to produce refugees. Additional pre‐entry measures attempt to make the asylum route as difficult as possible through the use of visa requirements and carrier sanctions. For those asylum seekers who manage to make the journey despite these obstacles, the administrative evaluation of their claims is accelerated, the legal procedures shortened, and the opportunities for appeal reduced. In addition, governments are increasingly resorting to bilateral agreements to ensure the readmission of rejected asylum seekers into the countries from or through which they came. The implementation of these measures in many European countries—but also in North America and Australia—are already well on their way, and the trend toward harmonizing these restrictionist responses is likely to continue. Policy makers need to be reminded of the risks of their policies for the basic tenets of asylum and refugee protection.